


sleepless in seoul

by ozhaleegh



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: ASMR Youtuber Na Jaemin, Alternate Universe - College/University, Lee Jeno-centric, M/M, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28767960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozhaleegh/pseuds/ozhaleegh
Summary: The thing is that Jeno’s never had a problem falling asleep, once he gets around to it. It’s the getting-around-to-it that’s always been the issue, and it’s only gotten worse after a couple of years in college.As it turns out, watching cookingnana helps.(or: jeno discovers asmr)
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 21
Kudos: 160





	sleepless in seoul

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact i wrote most of this five days before jeno posted his first jsmr video... im a psychic
> 
> title comes from epik high's iconic 2019 album sleepless in ____________

_baby, you and me ain’t no different / we suffer the same condition: love_

The fifth time Jeno nods off in Fluid Mechanics and has to be rudely awoken by Donghyuck’s insistent elbow, he decides that something has to change.

He brings up this newfound resolution as he and Donghyuck settle down for lunch in their customary spot outside the Engineering Annex.

“Dude, just jack off before you go to bed,” Donghyuck says around a bite of kimbap. “Works like a charm.”

Jeno throws his balled-up saran wrap at him. “I think I’m okay, actually.”

“Clearly not _that_ okay if you’re asking _me_ how to get your life together,” Donghyuck says blithely, and okay, point.

The thing is that Jeno’s never had a problem _falling_ asleep, once he gets around to it. It’s the getting-around-to-it that’s always been the issue, and it’s only gotten worse after a couple of years in college. After all, as a great prophet once said, there’s so much to see, so much to do, and who’s he to deny the call? (The prophet, of course, is Smash Mouth.)

Yeah, so. It’s not really insomnia.

He just can’t seem to stop himself from cycling through the same four apps for hours on end, night in and night out, long after they’ve stopped entertaining him. His mom would probably call it tech addiction, if she knew. 

(She doesn’t.)

But, well, college life is busy, you know? Not any busier than high school had been, maybe, between school and cram school and soccer and more school, but now that he’s in his third year of college, he’s realizing that the first-year bliss of only having to worry about classes is short-lived. Now he’s got all his engineering coursework and his part-time job at the library café and his Vice President stuff for his service org and the senior design project he’s brainstorming ideas for and the guitar accompaniment gig Donghyuck had talked him into doing for their school’s singing group and—it’s a lot, sometimes.

So at the end of the day, he can’t seem to shake the feeling that he deserves some time to himself, some time to really relax and enjoy himself. Some time to do the things that _he_ wants to do, so that he can go to sleep happy and content, with good vibes that’ll carry over to the morning. Of course, the problem is that in the moment, he never really knows what he wants to do and nothing ever feels like it’s sufficiently relaxing, so he just clicks on the next thing and the next thing and before he knows it, it’s 6 a.m. again and he’s dreading the prospect of going to his 8 a.m. Circuits lab.

And so it goes.

***

Against all expectations, it’s his demon neighbor Chenle who gives him the idea. 

“You look like you’ve been having trouble sleeping, hyung,” Chenle says to him in the elevator one morning, frowning at Jeno from underneath his bucket hat. “It’s too early in the semester for this.”

For a moment, Jeno genuinely considers telling him that Chenle’s habit of watching (and yelling at) 4 a.m. basketball games doesn’t help, which is how he knows he’s _really_ sleep-deprived. He settles for a noncommittal shrug instead. “You know how it is.”

“Yeah,” Chenle says, nodding sagely even though Jeno doubts he’s ever gotten less than ten hours of sleep in his life. Jeno’s _seen_ Chenle powerwalking out of the floor bathroom freshly showered with his pajamas on at 6 p.m. on nights before early morning games (thank you, California, and whoever invented the concept of time zones).

There’s a rare moment of silence, before Chenle’s face brightens. “Have you tried ASMR?”

“What, like the tapping and stuff?” 

“Yeah! My friend Renjun’s really into it, he likes to just lay in bed and zone out... I can ask him for some Youtube recommendations if you want?”

Which is how Jeno ends up curled up in bed at 10 p.m. on a Thursday, staring at sixteen videos from Chenle on Kakaotalk. 

It takes him about thirty seconds to decide that the roleplay stuff is not for him. He’s not really big on going to the doctor in real life, let alone virtually while he’s trying to sleep, thanks. Unintelligible whispering is slightly better, if still a little shudder-inducing, and he’s almost settled on writing sounds as the least unsettling of the bunch when one of the suggested videos catches his eye. 

The cake in the thumbnail looks _delicious_. It’s a peach cream castella, according to the title—a title littered with kaomojis, declaring the video to be “a _cookingnana_ production!” Jeno’s never really been one for sweets, but the castella looks so fluffy and inviting—he clicks on the video without a second thought.

He’s entranced from the beginning, watching a pair of hands slicing peaches into thin slices, a cute little Ryan kitchen timer on the counter keeping them company, before the video cuts to the gentle whir of sugar and eggs being whisked together. By the time the hands start sifting the flour into the wet ingredients, his eyes are drooping, and he’s asleep before the cake makes it out of the oven. 

***

“Dude, ASMR changed my life,” he tells Mark the next week, plopping into his unofficial official seat five minutes before their Children’s Lit class.

Mark glances up from the chapter of _The Little Prince_ they were supposed to have read for that day, arching a perfectly semicircular eyebrow. “Didn’t you say like, five days ago that you hated it and were never going to trust your demon neighbor ever again?”

“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” Jeno says loftily.

“I regret telling you about Emerson,” Mark mutters, but he’s smiling. He closes his book with a sigh, apparently having resigned himself to bullshitting his way through discussion. 

“Anyways, that was before I discovered this baking channel. I wanna kiss whoever’s behind it, seriously, I’ve never been so well-rested in my life.”

Mark wrinkles his nose. “Kiss, really, it was that good?”

Jeno nods so hard he almost sprains his neck. “Hyung, I woke up _before_ my alarm today, no snoozing at all. You know that never happens! If I ever meet them in real life, I’m respectfully requesting the opportunity to kiss.”

“More successfully than you've been respectfully requesting the opportunity to kiss Na Jaemin all semester, I hope?” Mark asks, wiggling those stupid eyebrows at him. 

Jeno lets out a strangled squeak. He scans the half-filled room frantically, settling back into his seat only when he doesn’t see Jaemin’s artfully tousled hair anywhere.

“Relax,” says Mark, looking way too amused for someone who’s supposed to be Jeno’s least annoying friend. “You know he’s never here more than thirty seconds before class starts, if that.”

Jeno crosses his arms with a huff, willfully tamping down the accompanying pout. “You’re just lucky today wasn’t the _one_ day he decided to be early.”

It turns out that Mark was right to be unworried, because Jaemin slides into his seat in front of them approximately three and a half minutes late—not that Jeno was counting—slightly out of breath as he deposits his daily 31-ounce Starbucks cup onto the entirely inadequate folding half-desk the university deigns to provide them. 

Professor Kang doesn’t even pause in her explanation of their final project. It’s a group presentation, which means that Mark’ll be there to provide his Lit major expertise _and_ there’s one less test to study for, thank _God_. 

Jeno’s feeling distinctly less thankful for both of those things two minutes later, because as soon as Professor Kang gives the class time to arrange itself into four-person groups, Mark leans forward and says, “Hey, Jaemin.”

Mark’s least annoying friend status? Officially revoked.

He manages to pinch Mark’s side even through Mark’s attempts to shield himself, shit-eating grin firmly in place, but it’s already too late. Jaemin turns to smile at them, eyes crinkling at the corners. His hair looks extra fluffy today, Jeno notes, though the darkness under his eyes is as present as ever. Even tired, he looks like an angel.

If Jeno has to look at Na Jaemin’s perfect hair and perfect teeth and perfect face up close for the _rest of the semester_ , he’s gonna scream. 

Mark ignores the frantic texts Jeno starts sending him under the table, because of course he does. “Wanna join me and Jeno for this project?”

Jaemin’s smile grows impossibly brighter. “If you have room for two! My friend Jisung’s in this class.” 

He gestures in the direction of a skinny boy squinting at them from across the room.

“Oh, that’s perfect then!” Mark says, too enthusiastically for the situation. “Right, Jeno?”

Mark is _so_ dead to him. But it’s too late to say no, and too late to drop the class, and too late to learn English and move to Connecticut like his cousin Jaehyun, so in the end he has no choice but to nod and shoot Jaemin his least strained eye-smile as they sort out the details.

***

“You don’t actually have to talk to him if you don’t want to,” Mark says after class, slinging his arm around Jeno’s shoulders. “I just thought it might be nice to have the opportunity?”

Jeno lets out a sigh, leans into Mark’s loose embrace. “I know, I just—”

He’s just wishing he had some of Mark’s drive, is all. It’s not just that Mark’s less shy than Jeno, though he is. But somehow Mark always seems to know exactly what he wants and exactly what he needs to do to get it—that’s how he ended up at their university in Korea, after all, rather than one of the North American schools his Canadian friends had gone to. 

Jeno’s not sure that he knows how to make choices that haven’t been predetermined for him. 

His parents have never been particularly demanding, but the expectations don’t begin or end at home. He’s known that he and Donghyuck were going to attend a university like this from the start, because that’s what kids who grew up in communities like theirs _do_ . He’d decided on engineering for almost as long, because that’s what people who are good at math and science and like it well enough _do_ (and because it’s one of the surefire ways to make his parents proud, though they’d never say it, too scared of pressuring him into a lifestyle he doesn’t want). 

He’d followed Donghyuck into soccer when they were seven and been recruited into Mark’s brand new service org during first year by Mark himself, too nice to say no to the determined second year passing out flyers on the quad. 

But when he’s by himself, when he doesn’t have the expectations of friends or family or society to fall back upon and no principles besides vague platitudes like “be yourself!” and “follow your heart!” to guide him, how’s he supposed to know what he really feels? How’s he supposed to know if the tug in his chest when Jaemin looks at him is just proximity and hormones, or something more? 

“You’re overthinking it,” Mark says, tugging affectionately at Jeno’s ear as they part ways in front of the library. “Just get to know him a little, yeah? You can figure out the rest later.”

***

As it turns out, Na Jaemin is _loud_. Jeno hadn’t realized it because Jaemin doesn't talk much during class, answering only when called upon and mostly stirring only to take sips of his ludicrously large coffee, but it only takes half an hour of the four of them “working on their project” in the library for Jeno to realize that that’s hardly the status quo. 

“At least we have the advantage of the youth perspective,” Jaemin proclaims, reaching over to ruffle Jisung’s hair with more vigor than strictly necessary. “I mean, we’ve got a real-life child right here, so—”

Jeno takes advantage of the ensuing scuffle to check his phone, brightening immediately when he sees that _cookingnana_ uploaded a new video just an hour ago. It’s a cream puff recipe today, apparently, though it doesn’t make much of a difference to Jeno. He doesn’t watch _cookingnana_ videos for the culinary knowledge. He adds the video to his Watch Later with a swipe of his thumb, already looking forward to catching it under the covers later with his phone brightness turned all the way down, before looking up to see Jaemin gazing intently at him, prior commotion forgotten.

“What?” Jeno says, self-conscious.

Jaemin just shakes his head, mouth quirking up at the corners. Jeno tries not to think about the curve of Jaemin’s lips, or the way that his pink sweatshirt stretches over the broadness of his shoulders. He’s only semi-successful. 

“Nothing,” Jaemin says finally, looking back down at his notebook. “You looked happy, is all.”

***

Happiness is relative, Jeno decides. Sure, he was happy thinking about the prospect of a new _cookingnana_ video, but that happiness pales in comparison to the thrum of excitement singing through his veins now as he sits across from Jaemin at the library café. His workplace wouldn’t have been his first choice for a place to get a snack, but Jaemin had suggested it after Mark and Jisung had left to go to their next classes, content in the knowledge that they’d at least figured out a subject for their presentation and worked out a tentative schedule. 

Jaemin’s talking about macarons, waving his hands in the air as he chatters on about aging egg whites and sifting almond flour. “—and no matter _how_ many times I’ve tried, I can’t get them to be like the ones they sell here! I’m on my like, thirty-fourth? Thirty-fifth try? But they’re just not _right_ , I don’t know, it’s something about the texture, it’s just not…”

He pauses, scrunching his face up as he pinches his fingers around an imaginary macaron. It’s cute, Jeno thinks, hopelessly endeared and trying not to be. He hadn’t even known Jaemin baked until about ten minutes ago, and he files it into his mental _Things About Na Jaemin_ folder. 

“I can get you the recipe?” Jeno offers. “Yeri-noona is the one who bakes them for us, and she’s Mark-hyung’s housemate, so I see her all the time even when I’m not at work.”

Jaemin gasps at that, eyes as round as the macarons they've been discussing. In a flash he’s leaning into Jeno’s space, hands clutching Jeno’s in excitement. “You'd do that? I’ll bring you a dozen! Two dozen! A hundred!”

“Won’t they be heavy?” Jeno asks, breaking out his signature eye-smile to cover up the way his heart has suddenly jumped into overdrive. 

Jaemin leans back, considering. “Maybe… I guess you should just come over then, when I’m trying the recipe!”

“Come over?” Jeno’s dead. He’s dreaming. “Like, to your place?”

“Yes!” Jaemin’s gaining enthusiasm now, megawatt smile back on as he waves his and Jeno’s joined hands across the cafe table. “To my apartment! You do like macarons, right?”

Jeno nods. 

“Then it's settled! My apartment, after we get the recipe. I’ve been dying to get these right for _years_ , you have no idea.”

Jeno’s never sent a message faster in his life.

***

Jaemin lives two subway stops from campus, just down the street from the goshiwon where Donghyuck lives. The apartment’s neater than Jeno expected, though sparsely decorated in the way boys’ living spaces tend to be. The clearest display of personality in the kitchen area is a little kitchen timer on the counter shaped like Ryan, which Jeno zeroes in on immediately. 

“Hey, you have one too!”

“Too?” Jaemin asks, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, I follow a YouTuber who has a timer just like that. _Cookingnana_ , I don’t know if you’ve ever watched...?”

Jaemin’s quiet for a beat, then laughs lightly. “No, I don't think I’ve watched any of their videos on YouTube. They have good taste, though, Ryan’s the cutest!”

“I think Line Friends are cuter,” says Jeno, and doesn't think any more of it. 

He spends the next three hours helping with the easy things, like weighing and sifting and tasting. Mostly they just talk, though, about Jaemin’s hatred of strawberry-flavored things and Jeno’s absolute favorite car in KartRider and the time Jisung had asked Jaemin to make him baguettes at 3 a.m. (“Spoiled brat,” Jaemin says, smiling fondly down at the circles of batter he’s piping.) It’s only when Jeno’s phone buzzes to alert him that his shift at the café is starting in half an hour that he reluctantly pulls himself away, taking more time to gather his belongings than strictly necessary.

Before he leaves, Jaemin pushes a neatly wrapped box of macarons onto him, despite Jeno's insistence that he can get as many as he wants from work. Jeno cradles them in his lap the entire subway ride there, only hesitating for moment before trying one outside the library. 

They're perfect.

***

Jeno’s about to settle down and watch his _cookingnana_ video of the night when, on impulse, he checks his school email one last time. He doesn’t actually expect to see anything new, which is why the email sent two minutes ago informing him that “Na Jaemin resolved 21 comments in LWTL 114 Final Project” catches him off guard.

This isn’t the first time he’s seen Jaemin working on their project so late, even though their presentation isn’t for another three weeks. It makes him wonder if being up late is the norm for Jaemin too, if it’s the reason for the seemingly endless stream of coffee.

He screenshots the email and texts it to Jaemin, amused. 

**jeno**  
can’t sleep? (04:24)

**jaemin**  
never lol (04:24)

**jeno**  
i know the feeling TAT (04:25)

**jaemin**  
hey is it weird if (04:25)

Jeno bites his thumbnail absently, swiping in and out of the chatroom as he waits.

**jaemin**  
can i call? (04:26)  
sorry i know this is weird i just (04:26)  
it helps when i talk to people and everyone else i know is asleep (04:26)  
(｡•́︿•̀｡) (04:27)

Jaemin picks up on the first ring. His voice is dark and syrupy, free of the affectations of daytime. “Don’t you have class in, like, three hours?”

“Don’t remind me,” Jeno hums, wriggling in his sheets to lay more comfortably on his side. “Anyways, you’re one to judge, you’re up too.”

“So I am.”

The silence is comfortable, punctuated only by their quiet breathing in the dark.

“Tell me a story?” suggests Jaemin, finally. Jeno can almost imagine what he’d look like on the other side, tousle-haired and staring at the ceiling. He probably has Ryan pajamas, too.

“Demanding,” Jeno says, but he’s smiling. “What do you want to hear about?” 

***

“It’d be kind of nice,” Jaemin says during one of these late night conversations, “to have a place where no one knows who you are.”

Jeno hums. “Yeah?”

“I like to be liked, you know?”

Jeno knows. Ever since he’s really started getting to know Jaemin he’s seen it, in the way Jaemin sizes people up before interacting with them, the way he says ridiculous things to ease tension, the way he masks his exhaustion behind smiles, easy as breathing. 

“When I talk to people face to face, I talk a certain way, act a certain way.” Jaemin pauses. Jeno can hear the low hum of the space heater through the speakerphone, permeating the easy silence. “And I mean, that’s me too, it’s not fake or anything. But it would be nice to take a break from that, don't you think? To not think about it at all.”

Jeno’s blanket is very fuzzy and very warm. He thinks about humming again, just to let Jaemin know he’s listening, but it comes out quieter this time, slower.

“To have somewhere where no one expects anything of you,” Jaemin continues, voice beginning to sound like it’s coming from very far away. “Where people don’t know what I look like or what I sound like or how old I am, even.”

That sounds nice to Jeno, and he means to say so. Somehow his words get lost on the way to his mouth, though, and the next thing he knows he’s bolting awake with his alarm.

***

“Donghyuck, I don't know if I like him,” Jeno says suddenly.

Donghyuck doesn't even look up from where he's laying on Jeno's dorm room floor, Circuits textbook balanced precariously above him. “The fact that I don't even have to ask who you're talking about suggests that you do.”

“No, you don't get it,” Jeno says urgently, sliding off his bed to sit next to Donghyuck. “You always know what you want, Hyuck, I never do. Soccer, music, all those girl group dances you always made me learn… I did all those things because you did them! And it's not like I _didn't_ like those things, but… I don't know. What do I know about liking anything, let alone a whole person?”

Donghyuck is silent for a long, concerning moment. When Jeno finally chances a glance at him, he's met with the most incredulous look he's ever seen on his friend in their sixteen years of friendship.

“Jeno, what the _hell_ are you talking about? Okay, first of all, you definitely like Jaemin, so jot that down. You’ve literally talked about him and your little coffee/baking/nighttime dates nonstop for about a month and half now, and _not_ in the same way that you talk about Mark or me or that neighbor you pretend to hate.” Donghyuck’s sitting up now, textbook tossed to the side as he points at Jeno accusingly. “Second of all, you like lots of things! I don't know if you know this, but I don't love biking. _You_ do, and I like going with you because you're my best friend and I like hanging out with you. You're the one who suggested that we read all billion chapters of One Piece! You're the one who made us go to that antique car show that one time! You're the one who said we should volunteer at the cat shelter even though you're allergic and I _told_ you you’d spend the whole time sneezing! Yeah, maybe I got you into soccer and girl groups and all that, but Jeno, where did you get the idea that this was a one-way road?”

Donghyuck’s voice has grown soft, and Jeno’s suddenly finding it hard to look at him, choosing instead to pick at the little hole in his left sock. 

“I don't know,” he admits finally. “I just feel like you and Mark and everyone I know are going at a million miles a minute and I’m being left behind. Hyuck, Mark has his whole _life_ planned out for himself and I'm having a crisis over whether or not I even _like_ anything. What if I never figure out what I want to do, or who I want to be, or any of that?”

Donghyuck snorts. “Dude, if you're comparing yourself to golden boy Mark Lee you've already lost. But also, like, even if he does have it all figured out—which he _definitely_ doesn't, by the way—you really think you need to know all that to know what'll make you happy?”

Jeno can't breathe. Doesn't he? Isn't that what everyone else has been doing, figuring out who they Truly Are and then becoming their Truest Selves?

Donghyuck sighs, wraps Jeno in his arms like he'd done when they were seven. 

“Just figure out the little things, Jeno,” he says into Jeno’s hair. “If you know that happiness is riding your bike every day or sneezing at your cats every day or hell, kissing Na Jaemin every day, isn't that enough?”

***

Their presentation goes fine. Mark soldiers through his part using what Jeno calls his club president voice, Jeno makes a joke halfway through that at least three people (including Professor Kang) laugh at, and Jisung only forgets his lines once. Jaemin’s unusually pale and quiet, but Jeno chalks it up to nerves. He wouldn’t have expected Jaemin of all people to have a fear of public speaking, but different people react to things differently, and overall they probably do at least well enough to pull a B+, which is all Jeno needs for his last Gen Ed class anyways.

What he _really_ doesn’t expect is for Jaemin to remain withdrawn even after their presentation is over and they’ve all filed into a booth at the chicken place across the street from campus to celebrate. Instead of teasing Jisung or draping himself over Jeno, Jaemin’s fiddling with his phone, screen angled away from the table.

“Are you okay?” Jeno asks quietly, putting a hand on Jaemin’s knee.

Jaemin jerks away so quickly Jeno doesn’t even have time to process it properly. “I’m fine! Just feeling a little under the weather.”

Jeno furrows his brow but doesn’t push, lets Jaemin go back to staring at his phone rather than at the rest of them. He looks across the table at Mark, who shrugs, and then at Jisung, who shoots him an awkward peace sign. 

When Jaemin says something about having to study for finals and scuttles off, chicken half unfinished, Jeno feels something heavy settle into his stomach. 

This is it then. Now that the project is over, Jaemin probably just doesn’t want to be his friend anymore, and that’s fine. Jaemin can choose to be friends with whomever he wants, and if that list of people doesn’t include Jeno, that’s okay. 

He’ll be okay.

***

Jeno’s never been more in need of a _cookingnana_ video than he is when he gets back from the library that night, eyes stinging from the strain of staring at his laptop for twelve hours straight. He finds a new video waiting in his subscriptions, posted just that afternoon. Smiling, he leaves his phone on his desk and takes his time in the shower, letting the warm water relax his tense muscles.

By the time he curls up under his comforter half an hour later, he’s ready. He’s going to have the best sleep of his life, and he’s not going to think about Na Jaemin or any of the finals he hasn’t started studying for. He’s going to let the calming effect of _cookingnana_ wash over him, and he’s going to learn how to make… “Secret Message Cake”? Jeno has no idea what a Secret Message Cake is, but if that’s what _cookingnana_ ’s latest video is about, Jeno’s ready to find out.

As it turns out, a Secret Message Cake is an oblong cake baked in a loaf pan, with letters cut out and stuck into the batter so that when you cut the cake, each slice displays the message. He probably could have guessed that if he’d thought harder about it, Jeno thinks, eyes half shut already. He’s feeling so relaxed by the time the hands begin to cut the cake that he’s on the verge of clicking out of the video and going to sleep properly. 

It’s a good thing he doesn’t, because when _cookingnana_ pulls the first slice out of the pan, Jeno drops his phone directly onto his face.

He scrambles to pick it up, _sure_ he’d misread something, but no. There on the phone screen is his name, a message baked into cake for all 1.4 million _cookingnana_ subscribers to see.

_Lee Jeno, I like you._  
_Yours, Nana._

***

“Jeno, it’s two a.m.,” Mark says drowsily.

“Hyung, this is _important_ ,” Jeno whines into his phone, shivering on the landing in front of Mark’s off-campus apartment. Despite summer supposedly being just around the corner, it’s still _cold_ , and he hadn’t bothered to put a jacket on over his pajamas before shoving his feet into his sneakers and sprinting the half mile to Mark’s.

There’s a long-suffering sigh on the other end, before he hears the telltale sounds of Mark rolling out of bed and falling on the floor. Jeno taps his foot impatiently, counting the one, two, three minutes before Mark finally opens the door in front of him, running a hand through his bedhead. “Literally _what_ could be so important that you needed to come here at this time?”

“I need to use your kitchen.”

Mark stares at him for a second before shaking his head and turning back around, yawning. “I’m not even gonna ask. Just don’t burn anything down—if the fire alarm goes off and I have to wake up again I _will_ kill you.”

He disappears back into his bedroom as Jeno darts into the kitchen. He looks around, slightly overwhelmed. Neither Jeno nor Mark get into the kitchen much, but Yeri bakes, so they _should_ have the things he needs. He starts rummaging through the cupboards, pulling out tools and ingredients as he finds them. 

He can totally bake a cake. He’s watched dozens of _cookingnana_ videos, so many that he hears _cookingnana_ ’s tagline—“Enjoy cooking!”—in his sleep sometimes. Plus he’s an engineering major, and he’d gotten good grades in all of his chem classes, and that’s basically what baking is, right, chemistry? If there’s one thing Jeno knows he’s good at, it’s measuring things and following directions, so this really shouldn’t be a problem at all. 

He’s gonna bake Na Jaemin a cake—in retrospect, the connection between Jeno's favorite ASMR baking youtuber _cookingnana_ and Jeno’s favorite (loud) baking classmate Na Jaemin probably should've been clear from the start—and he’s going to give it to him in the morning. Jaemin will be happy and surprised, and Jeno might even get a kiss out of it. Everything’s going to be fine.

***

Everything’s _mostly_ fine.

He hasn’t set off the fire alarm, thank god, but it’s taken him four tries to come up with something that’s both semi-edible and actually displays the message properly when you cut into it. He’s just finishing up the frosting when Yeri walks into the room, looking entirely too awake for 7 a.m. She blinks at him and the seven mixing bowls he’s strewn across the countertop a couple of times, before her mouth curves into a smile far too threatening for her soft features. “Jeno-yah, this is all going to be cleaned up before I get home this afternoon, right?”

“Yes, noona,” he mumbles, trying to angle himself subtly to block her vision of the loaf pan he may or may not have accidentally burned cake onto during one of his previous attempts.

From the look she gives him, it’s only kind of successful. He gives her his best smile, the one she once said made her want to pinch his cheeks and buy him food forever, and she just rolls her eyes before grabbing her keys off of the counter and waving at him on her way out. “You owe me boba for a week, Lee Jeno!”

“I’ll bring it to work later!” he yells after her, turning back to his frosting. 

Baking aside, just the construction of the cake had been a nightmare on its own. He’d lucked out when he found hangul cookie cutters in one of the drawers, but cutting all the letters out of cake and arranging them properly to fit the narrow pan without tilting or falling over had proven to be harder than he’d been expecting. 

Now that he’s packing slices of cake into one of Yeri’s long tupperware containers, though, he has to admit that the effort had been worth it.

He scans his work one last time, unable to stop the smile spreading across his face and the flutter of nervous energy in his stomach.

_Nana, I like you too._

He just hopes it’ll make Jaemin smile as well.

***

They don’t have class together anymore, and they’d never seen much of each other on Fridays, anyways, so Jeno has to text Jisung to ask where Jaemin would be. Two minor bribes later (convenience store snacks brought to the library on three separate occasions whenever Jisung wants, and Jeno’s demon neighbor’s number), Jeno finds himself nervously clutching his tupperware full of cake as he flags Jaemin down outside the Psych building.

“For you.” He sticks the box out, staring determinedly at the collar of Jaemin’s t-shirt. He’d done his best to recreate _cookingnana_ ’s perfect Nutella frosting swirl, but it had gotten kind of jostled during the walk back to campus. At this point, there was probably more frosting on the container than the cake.

“Jeno-yah,” Jaemin starts, delight creeping into his voice. “Did you bake me a cake?”

“You should try a slice,” Jeno mutters in response, turning his gaze to Jaemin’s immaculate white Vans.

Jaemin hums, uses the fork Jeno helpfully hands him to pry a slice out of the container.

He can tell the exact moment that Jaemin sees the message, hears the catch of breath before the tupperware is deposited gently onto a nearby bench, before Jaemin’s cool fingers tilt his chin up to look at Jaemin properly. Jaemin’s grinning unabashedly, eyes crinkled at the corners in the way Jeno loves so much. “You baked me a cake.”

“I did,” says Jeno, swallowing hard.

“You really like me back?”

“Too much,” Jeno confesses. He can already feel his knees beginning to shake, though he doesn’t quite know why. He already knows how Jaemin feels. It’s just different now that he’s standing here in front of him, his stupid too-dry, increasingly Nutella-less cake languishing on a grimy campus bench.

Jaemin’s gaze softens, his smile growing more private. He runs his thumb along Jeno’s jaw, unfurls his fingers so he’s cradling Jeno’s cheek. He’s close, so close that Jeno can count every one of Jaemin’s unnecessarily long eyelashes, can feel Jaemin’s breath ghosting across his lips.

“Lee Jeno,” he murmurs. “Wanna enjoy cooking with me?”

Jeno sputters out a laugh, feels the tension bleed out of his limbs. 

“How about we leave the cooking to you,” he says, glancing around quickly before leaning forward to plant a kiss on Jaemin’s perfect nose. “I don’t think Yeri-noona’s ever gonna let me back in her kitchen after today.”

“That’s okay, baby, I’ll let you use mine,” Jaemin says with a laugh, sliding his hand down the curve of Jeno’s neck to squeeze his shoulder. He lets go to pick up the slice of cake again, eyeing the lettering with unfettered delight before taking a giant bite. 

Jeno watches him, expectant. 

The second Jaemin closes his mouth, his eyes bug out. He sets the slice back into the container gingerly, chewing valiantly through badly concealed surprise. 

Jeno laughs at him, barely even offended. Any pride he’d once had had been abandoned at approximately 4 a.m., and honestly? Jaemin’s initial reaction when he’d seen the cake had already made all those hours in Mark’s kitchen worth it.

“On second thought,” says Jaemin, swallowing. He reaches around Jeno to swipe Jeno’s Hydroflask out of the side pocket of his backpack. “Maybe I should do the cooking.”

“Maybe you should,” Jeno agrees. 

***

There’s an additional screen at the end of the next _cookingnana_ video, a three-second message after the chirped “Enjoy cooking!” 

_For those of you who asked: he likes me back._ ꒰˘̩̩̩⌣˘̩̩̩๑꒱♡

**Author's Note:**

> alternative title, courtesy of my friend jo: lee jeno deals with his fragile undergrad emotions
> 
> thank you for reading!!! this is my first fic and my first time doing any sort of creative writing since age 12, so comments would be much appreciated~
> 
> huge shoutout to my friends jo and kristen for reading this through and reassuring me that it was okay, actually—i don't know that i would have summoned the courage to post this without them! thank you <3


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